A Couple of Reviews

Went to a talk given by Canadian-Chinese author Judy Fong Bates yesterday. She was there to read from and promote her third book, a memoir called “The Year of Finding Memory”.

The first thing she did was give tribute to the library of her childhood in Acton. A good move politically as the talk took place in the library, although I felt her gratitude was sincere, and made a nice launch into storytelling as she described the quaint details of the place and its people.

She was the only child of parents who were both on their second marriage, so she only had half-siblings. Her parents were not happily married but directed all of their love toward her. Her father committed suicide when she was 22, and it took her 30 years to come to a place of relative reconciliation with it. He was 80.

She talked about how she did not publish until the age of 47 (she is now 60). Hmmmm. Perhaps this was the reason I went to her talk – just to hear this...

The heart of her talk centred around her inner experience of a very young immigrant child growing up in small town waspy Ontario, seeking identification with someone like herself – an English-speaking Chinese girl – when there was none around in the 50s and 60s. This lack of a role model made her a latebloomer as a writer, and it wasn’t until she visited her parents’ ancestral homes in China in 2006 that she felt had a story to tell.

I can see from her presentation that she is an engaging storyteller and speaker, even if she didn’t get much depth into the story of herself. It left me with the feeling that she is still in the process of finding herself, starting with the desire to connect to her roots. I suppose we are all in that process, or sooner or later will be.

What I’ve learned also is that with or without conscious intention, she gave a talk on storytelling with the mastery of a born storyteller, and to me, the presentation could have been aptly headlined as: “The Art of Compelling Storytelling: An Introduction”. This is invaluable to me.
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Finished reading Robert Johnson’s “Transformation: the 3 Levels of Masculine Consciousness”, and my first sentiment is “Wish I had read it earlier” – my usual with Robert Johnson’s books. Always a load of treasures, in such slim volumes, but as soon I finish reading I feel I ought to read it again. This is a phenomenon very contrary to my typical gulp-and-go style of reading.

Soul Unrest

Got home from the Ghost Dance on the weekend, a bit sleep-deprived and stirred-up from my time there...

On the home-stretch along Lakeshore we ran into major traffic congestion and some ridiculous detours dued to a marathon race and almost couldn’t get home as our part of the Beaches was totally closed. Michael was his usual wound-up-tighter-than-a-$2-watch-self while driving and I finally blew up...

While stuck eating exhaust, I thought about the irony of the situation, how we begin with some pure and peerless intention such as a marathon, whether it is for competition or charity, we believed in our ‘cause’. And I would hazard to say that many of the people involved are also as environmentally-conscious and forward-thinking as the next person, but somehow we do not foresee nor register some of the consequences of a ‘noble’ cause such as this, even though most of our citizens are familiar with them by now. How much emission of CO2 and greenhouse gas has been released into the atmosphere because of the traffic congestion caused by the marathon due to road closures, detours and restrictions? Is it worth while in the big picture of our collective health to have done this? Could it have been thought out and organized with a more wholistic view in mind, and have the route, say, run along the boardwalk instead of a major thoroughfare, or does that defeat the purpose of the mother organization (in this case the Scotiabank) to blatantly advertise and covertly whitewash its name? Does anyone see and care, I wonder...

Why, as human beings, our intentions are often good but seldom pure? I ask this as a rhetorical question now, but I think it’ll serve me better to try and answer it sincerely after some deeper reflections later...
_____________

The Ghost Dance felt very different than the Warrior Dance a month ago. The energy was much heavier and fractious, not uplifting and cohesive like the Warrior Dance. Perhaps it is the nature of the Ghost Dance but I am told that every ceremony every time is different. Michael said that all the ancestors ceremonies, of which the Ghost Dance is a big if not biggest one, feel very dark and burdensome and overwhelmingly negative to him. I suppose it has to do with our ancestral baggage being dragged out from the attic into the light of day, and demanding to be claimed and returned to its rightful place...

I was tired and short-fused without any apparent cause, and wanted to leave the first night. Time dragged, whereas time flew and most of the time my whole being did too during the Warrior Dance. The thought came to me several times during the weekend that I am done with coming to the Fire, although I felt it came out of something more than just the energy of the moment. I will wait and see how it unfolds for the next while. When I mentioned it to Michael, he said he feels the same way. Perhaps this door is closing and another one is opening...?

In spite of this, I was happy to see and be with all the people that came, that new sense of communion which came while serving at the Warrior Dance is still very much with me. It refreshes my heart and being to be amidst the beauty and love of these people I’ve come to know, even those who were new to me: Michael, Jessica, Samantha and Joachim, 4 young people from diverse backgrounds but drawn to the Fire as always, by the same truth-seeking spirit we all came with.

Michael Ware carried a message from his mother, Audri Scott Williams, who felt the call to step into the role of a human rights activist and amongst other initiatives, started the 13 Moon Walk for Peace around the world. Their slogan is: GIVING VISIBILITY TO THE INVISIBLE AND VOICE TO THE VOICELESS. I felt deeply moved by the message as well as the messenger, as many did in the Lodge after he spoke. Many have come to the Fire and planted seeds, and now we are stronger by yet another planting. But I sensed a level of disheartened cynicism and despair in this young man from Maryland, who has seen much in and around the world of the injustices and indignities of life, and I pray wholeheartedly that his faith and spirit will keep him buoyant and strong, just as I hope for all of us.
___________

The unrest I have been feeling lately is with me still, perhaps even more acute now after the Ghost Dance, although I don’t know if the dance was a contributing factor.

I had gone to the dance with the intention of asking my ancestors for help with grounding and manifesting in the physical and material, of connecting and living fully in my body, and recovering my selfhood. Finding my feet, as it occurs to me now, and standing firmly in them, then walking into the world and wherever my path takes me.

Is the anguish I am experiencing the kind the Little Mermaid felt after she committed to trading her immortality for human feet to walk in her mortal destiny? Will I find spiritual immortality in the end too, if I can surrender to love and life as she did??

My body tells me to just sit with the discomfort of the unrest, without trying to gain insight into it. The final word is, do nothing until I tell you to. Drop your mind into your body if it starts to kick up a fuss.

The Torment of Others

Dreams were too fragmented to recall, and I dawdled too long before settling down to write today... it is 10:30 already but I am in my ‘office’... I want to finish the book on Jung today. Must remember to bring earplugs tomorrow, there are disturbances here in the library of all varieties...

There’s the woman who has just whipped into this section with her fruit cocktail, the complimentary copy of the Globe & Mail in the other hand, and sniffed, sniffed her way to the back where a blonde woman sat reading quietly. With her bike helmet still on her head, she began to run a verbal commentary as she read the paper, shuffling it with vigour. Then the cursing started, though at first it was hard to tell whether she was telling the articles to ‘fuck off’, or the guy across the room on his cellphone. The blonde woman decided to relocate, and Helmet Talker was left yammering to empty chairs. But it wasn’t long before the eruption of another stream of expletives, and she charged off with the plume of newspaper behind her, firing a final missive telling Cellphone Guy that his voice is sick.

In the wake of her jagged emanations, I sit pondering what brought her to this state of asocial display. The unchecked and uncensored streams of expression is nearly admirable, nearly childlike, except for the aggressive content delivered with hefty doses of vitriolic venom. Bitterness trails her like acrid vapour as she moves from one seat to another around the entire floor, because, as she told anyone who cared to listen, that man smelled bad and probably has AIDS, the sun is too bright and in her eye... An unplanned round of musical chairs thus began, with people quietly but resolutely scattering like rats off a burning ship wherever she happened to alight her caustic self.

Yet she appears healthy, well-dressed in biking gear, expensive-looking sunglasses against a clear complexion, but what lurks beneath? At one point she muttered at length against ‘white men’; does she see herself as another colour, her white woman-ness banished long ago when it could not defend itself again white men? As I allowed myself to imagine her life, I see a young girl, 9 or 10, mouth wide open with a full-body scream, eyes screwed shut, hands over her ears. But if you listen long enough, you’d hear that where her pain (and her scream) is most piercing, a note of something like joy is seeping through the crack. She relishes the screaming, this forceful ejecting of what her psyche and soma cannot hold. This is her aria, her Ave Maria.

Poem: How To Meet Your Body

hold the door
and I will come through
lower the welcome mat
of your expectations,
and shower me in bouquets
of fragrant adoration, devotion infused
prostrate your ego at my feet
where he serves best,
I will lay my hand in benediction
upon his thousand heads
and cast out from each
legions of doubt
inferiority
vanity
false humility
apathy
despondency
and all manners of inflations, deflations
inflagrancies and defenses

leaving you empty
thought—less
care—less
air—less
aim—less
bound—less
leaving you perfect
as a serene vessel to display my pearls,
a spotless screen to hang my sword,
a virgin shrine to house my wholiness.

just hold the door open
and I will come through.

A Dream for Michael

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

On a ship’s deck, I see the captain standing there, a good-looking man in his 30s or 40s, serious but not mean. He is looking straight ahead into the distance. His hair was blondish brown and longish. Beside him was a small boy huddled in a squat on top of a section of a tree stump, like a round block of wood, just to the left of the captain. He was hunched so I could only see the top of his flaxen head. It was not safe where he was so I went around behind him and picked him up, stump and all, and carried him over to the right of the captain. I remember seeing the captain’s name ‘in print’ in my mind’s eye; it was William St__rn, and where the space was, was a symbol for passageway, or bridge, or viaduct, shaped like 2 square brackets but turned outward. I ‘knew’ the letters that were supposed to go there were “ea” or “ia” – Stearn or Stiarn.

DREAMWORK:

I talked to Michael about this dream, seeing that it was meant for him. (A few days ago I had asked whether there was anything I ought to do to help Michael with what ails him – physically, it is the crippling pain in his right knee, and the guidance was that I ought to dream a dream for him.) In the telling I realized a couple of things:

First, the captain’s last name - Stearn, and my impression of him – stern, which is also the rear of the ship where the rudder is. (Why wasn’t his name Stern, I wonder? Because that’s not exactly how he is, even though he looked that way?? He is what he seems...?)

Second, the boy is on a tree stump – he is stumped, blocked, hence the resigned or withdrawn, and inert posture.

Now I drop the dream into my body...

This is the voyage of Michael’s life, the way he sees and feels it. Alone in the big, wide ocean, alone with the responsibility of a ship with no one except the little boy (they are closely related somehow). He has set his sight on higher things, and he is very preoccupied by them, even though at the moment he’s just standing there. He is man with much on his mind and no time to lose. He does not feel he needs help, not having had any. He’s used to doing it alone. You can focus better alone. It isn’t that he doesn’t like or want the boy, he just doesn’t know what to do with him. He cannot find it in himself to communicate to the boy, for fear it brings out problems he can’t handle. He doesn’t like not knowing what to do.

The boy has pulled inside himself, there was nowhere else for him to go. He is also stuck, like the captain, trapped and incarcerated on his own little ship – except his is even smaller, only a stump of wood – in the middle of the cold, indifferent ocean. He wants his mother, he is only a little boy after all, that’s why he’s sulking, and that’s why he was on the left side of the captain. But that’s not what the captain can give him. He is a man, and what he can give the boy is mentorship, guidance and knowledge about the world, discipline, the confidence to do things, to build, to destroy, to hunt, to survive, and to protect what’s yours. How to steer your ship. That’s why I moved him to the right side. Perhaps I am to steer Michael to the ‘right’ side, the side of the good masculine, the Good Father.

This morning (2 days after this dream) I had the feeling that he ought to talk to someone about what troubles him. Someone who is meant to help him with it. I felt quite strongly it could be Sonam, a Tibetan Buddhist Monk who he met a few years ago and has much respect for.

But what about the symbol of the bridge or passageway in the middle of the captain’s last name?

It is indeed a passage he will pass through to get to ‘the other side’ of this place where he feels trapped, stumped and blocked at. It cuts through the heart of the ‘sternness’ of his outlook of life, the joyless austerity and the inflexibility of discipline, and the barren isolation inside those walls where he is alone in his pain.

Love's Sting Still Stung

Woke up with the right side of my nose congested. Vaguely wondered what that meant emotionally, what’s coming out now?? Memory of a sticking-to-yourself kind of July heatwave unfolded, one that I seldom revisit since it happened 4 years ago. Shock: It feels like at least 10!... yet here it is haunting me still...

I was driving in crushing rush hour traffic westbound on Lakeshore, can’t remember where I was going now, or why I didn’t have the A/C on instead of marinating in the brutal afternoon heat and exhaust, and I was screaming. Screaming into my phone at A., screaming as loud as I had to to drown out her voice at the other end, screaming so the fury erupting inside would not blow me up into a million irreconcileable pieces.

So much emotional charge is still with me from that day, yet I cannot recall the details of what brought on that final break between us. Strange... All I have are the impressions that it left on me, an old scar gone silvery white after all the forgiving and forgetting are done, but I can still see the marks made indelible by feelings of betrayal, loss, and grief. I searched myself for signs of resentment now, and ah! there is still a little left, enough to bring me to this remembrance today.

I could get into tracing the development of our relationship, but I have the feeling that is better saved for another day; the writing is already looming on the wall for what it means to me today, and it says: Betrayal. And it is a much bigger betrayal than what I charged her with. I feel betrayed by love. I, who was once the apple of my mother’s eye, my lover’s, my friend’s, was suddenly tossed aside like so much impersonal refuse in one single act, with a swift kick to make sure I’m truly out of the way. That last kick was always the stab in the back, delivered by the ‘excuse’ my betrayor gave for why they had to do what they did. But I have forgiven and worked through those wounds, so there must be something underneath I hadn’t dig down far enough to... a deep dark cold is seeping...

It is the cold indifference that suddenly slammed into my face, where a warm rosy glow used to be in my relationship with these people once so close to me. I am stunned for I do not know what I have done wrong, what has happened while I was happily basking in love, why I was not given any warning, if life was indeed fair and kind. I am still frozen, in shock from the sudden withdrawal of love. I’ve lived the life of someone who fears love, stuck between giving and receiving, allowing neither.

I appeal to divine Source now, to bring warmth and life and flow to this frozen part of me, unlock me from this barren cell of loneliness, estranged from love, afraid of its sting, yet longing so much with what’s left of my heart for love to penetrate all and hold me again, and make me whole.

Something needs to happen in me... I need to be struck by love, like swift lightning, and this time I will be ready, with my heart held open, this time it is for healing.

The bride and groom have been brought together, but the marriage is yet to take place. The bride has not fallen in love with her betrothed for she has not yet seen his face, the face that is her own.
_______________

I don’t want to be
a dog
in a dog-eat-dog world.
Rather be a honey bee
making love
with a sting in my heart.

Ha!

Detox & Cleanse for a Head Type

I feel as if I need a detox and cleanse for my head. I look around the house and there are clumps of accumulated ‘stuff’ – supplements, food, bath and beauty product, books, movies, cd's, clothing, snacks – even my email folders and internet articles (do I really, really need 5 different email addresses?) – the list can go on, but that’ll just be another clump. They have become my own personal environmental footprint. I’ve been battling this insatiableness of the 7 since I learned about my enneatype and took a(nother) honest look at myself, in all of my gluttony, narcissism, pain avoidance, and need for variety, options, and infinite possibilities. I would defend my right to believe in the latter with my last breath.

This led me to read in one of my many (!!) articles on the enneagram that 7’s original loss was “I was too sad.” A little pebble dropped into the pond and I remember when that first came up during some enneagram work I did. Sadness came seeping then pouring out of me, honestly I had no idea it was there, like a steady flow of melancholy, with so much resignation and hopelessness I just wanted to lie down and die. That was how I felt most of the 14 years of my first marriage, which ended a blessed 10 years ago. Somehow that sadness had slipped my consciousness in the years hence, and although much had healed in me that sadness stayed wrapped in a waterproofed bundle for a while longer. There’s much more I could say (or write) about my journey and healing with this sadness that is hidden for the most part, I could write a whole story if I tried, but ought I to? It is certainly an option, but is it cloaked in the aura of exciting possibility to which I have little immunity and much craving?

It is time to trot out the mantra: "I have enough. There is enough. I need no more." Again, but to which I will add, “Know when it is enough, and STOP.

The point at which I ought to stop is the heart of the matter. I tend to railroad right over that little squeal of the brakes, in my headlong rush to more and more (and more!) stimulating possibilities. The only way for me to put a stop (ha ha) to that, or at least slow it down, is with my body. When I make a determined effort to give my body more say, more power and more focus, I feel lighter in my head, heavier in my bottom, and generally calmer and clearer. I don’t wobble as much in decision-making as when I feel more head-heavy, because the majority of the infinite number of choices before me fall like chafe from wheat, easily and quite simply. With this clarity come objectivity (not to be confused with indifference or aloofness, which I am prone) and expansiveness of vision, and this is when I learn best the lessons and insights in the kernel in the centre. Then I don’t feel the need to stuff myself with everything and anything, to fill the big hole in my solar plexus because I’ve disconnected from my lower body, my creative Goddess, my source to abundance.

My body, how do I stay connected to you?

PUT ALL OF YOUR TRUST IN ME. As if you are blind, and I am the only guide you have. Unlearn EVERYTHING you’ve learned before, and I will teach you what you need to know, give you what you need to have. No more, no less.

Write, only when my body wants to, not when my head thinks I should. (out of guilt, shame, anger, fear, etc.)
Exercise,
Eat,
Talk,
Travel,
Email,
Surf,
Read,
Express,
Rest,
Act,
... ditto.

I shall become as purely sensate a being as I can, and learn to say “that’s enough.” Know it, mean it, and live it.

It’s like playing Simon Says with my body. Body Says... Stay in touch!

p.s. The totem animal for Type 7 ought to be Squirrel, in my book. Okay, enough.

Inside the Chrysalis

Thursday, September 9, 2010

No dream recall, but woke up with the ‘uglies’ in my conscious today... that I am not good/beautiful/acceptable enough - #10 of my new moon wishes. The cause was shown to me just now, and I saw again, how my first and last betrayal by a man had unseated me. I saw myself falling from the height of my life – really, I was so high on life – plunging headlong, so suddenly and so fast, as if the wings I had so recently sprouted had been ripped out mid-flight, into a depth I could not even see, blinded by the shock.

I knew I had given up then, on love, on relationships, on ever knowing life with a soulmate by my side. I remember sitting on the patio of Sarah’s Café I didn’t know that I had also lost a piece of myself, the part that had always been assured of the genuine affection and adoration of men in my life. I suppose I am lucky that I’ve had it for so long.

So I asked my body to help me heal this. I asked whether there’s anything I ought to do. An image of a butterfly (a Monarch, of course, they are everywhere these days) came, then a pupa, the chrysalis, came. I knew then, the message, and the flash of truth striking home split me open as if in half. I felt the halves peel back, and there was a great space inside and beyond, aquamarine blue and deep, fluid though not water nor air, full of some kind of poignancy and potency I could not name. The truth given to me was that I don’t have to ‘do’ anyting; there is nothing to do but wait and incubate like the ‘imaginal disks’ inside the coccoon, and let nature takes its course.

Minutes later I came upon this post while jumping links:

Caterpillar to Butterfly via Imaginal Disks
http://ravenessences.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/caterpillar-to-butterfly-via-imaginal-disks

The universe not only gives me insight and healing, it wants to me to feel good too.

Sweet Finds of the Day

Just read the paragraph about women on their moon time in Cindy’s email about the upcoming Ghost Dance, and I was moved to tears...

"Moon Time is a sacred and beautiful time with Grandmother Moon, which must be honoured and respected. Women are encouraged to return home and rest so that the precious life force that is within you can move freely through your body to bring purification and re-alignment to every cell of your body."

I was just thinking the other day that I had never heard the explanation for women needing to be ‘quarantined’ if they are on their period during ceremonial times, and saying that they are ‘too powerful’ does not suffice for me...
___________

On our Labour Day Monday walk along Queen Street we came upon The Pie Shack, which, on previous passes have never tempted us enough to enter, or peek in when it was closed. There was a wooden dog house just outside of it, with a sheepdog lying in it. As it was meant to attract at least a curious glance, we looked, and we were hooked, as if we’ve just stumbled unto an oasis, without knowing we were parched and needy.

Just cross the threshold and the air felt different. It’s the kind of air you’d expect at a spa, the carefully packaged ambience of soothing stillness, designed to insulate your nerves against the jarring jangles of the world outside. I loved the furnishings immediately. The nouveau cheap chic of salvaged wooden tables, chairs, sofas, cabinet, and picture frames. I couldn’t help it (even though I could see the mild disdain and amusement in Michael’s eyes), I was charmed by the driftwood twig chandelier over the coffee table. Someone had lovingly and patiently collected these pieces that once were scattered across continents, perhaps oceans away, in my imagination, and someone else (the proprietor or his interior designer) had sourced them out and assembled them with very pleasing taste and a discerning eye for a kind of tranquil warmth and beauty. I felt a hearth fire burning even though there wasn’t one (the fireplace was boarded over).

The pies were homemade and lovely warmed, one slice is a quarter of a pie at $6 plus HST. An ingenious way of separating the true pie-lover from the dabbler-sampler, I thought, as the former (like Michael) would happily gobble up the quarter, and the latter (like me) would get the the-pie-is-bigger-than-my-stomach-but-my-eyes-aren’t look upon seeing the slice.

But the best find, the real treasure of the place, of the whole day for us, was the books lying around all over the place. There were old editions of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, and several books on dogs, and the moment I opened the one called “Old Dogs Are The Best Dogs” my heart broke out into a big smile. Suddenly I get why there is the old, arthritic sheepdog and his doghouse outside, it’s more than advertising, like putting a manikin outside a clothing store. There’s another theme running under the main headliners, the pies, here. It’s about the owner, an interesting, a glint of eccentricity in his eye kind of guy, who is nevertheless savvy and hip with a beachy, never-in-your-face sophistication. I can take you or leave you, as you please, but I’m definitely here, the look says. I may be flip-flop casual, but there’s also a discreet Nike swoosh on the hip of my shorts ;) And he loves dogs, although he never said so, even when he saw that we were watching waves of passersby stopping to look at the dog, then at the storefront, all he said was, “It’s not about the pies, eh? People are stopping for the dog.” No smile, no rancour either, he’s said this before.

The slice of pie, the little gem of a book (which I’ll be getting for my sister’s birthday gift), the attentive service, the patrons who came in and went about their ritual straight away (reading, writing, playing cards) probably in their accustomed places, the light and shadow playing on the earthy tone of the walls, the view of the park in the ravine across the street, and what endears my freaky little person the most: the timeless, comforting way the place greets you, embraces, and gently disarms you if it’s your first time there, cups your ears and whispers to you, ‘You are mine’, and soothes you into contented agreement that you love it here, that you belong here.

A Celestial Snapshot

Feeling brain-tired these last few days, the sense that I am still trying too hard, yet not trying hard enough. I’m still pushing myself, fighting surrender to stillness.

Michael is away at the Fire today and I feel a bit more relaxed that I’ll have the day to myself, in the sense that I will only have myself to deal with :)

I always feel that there are things I have to catch up on – chores, phone calls and emails I’ve put off, haircut, exercise, books I’m supposed to read, shopping, grooming Nemo, etc. etc. Once in a while these things get bunched up and the anxiety gets too intense.

At any given moment I could be found running concurrent trains of thought, and trying to attend to them all at the same time. Of course, that’s just a set up to fail, and my anxiety climbs up a notch. Trying to do too much AND feeling like I’m never doing enough is the cardinal sin of a 7. Mercury is in retrograde yet my mind is like a runaway train, and my body being dragged behind it, struggling to keep up...

The question is, should I go with it and ride it out, or does it better serve to work on balancing it? I shall try not to go for the ‘righteous’ answer... Ride it out, my body says, let it spend and empty itself out by the New Moon (in Virgo) next week, then begin again with a clean slate. Good advice.

This new moon affects me in my 4th and 7th house, family issues and partners. My sister has just informed me that our plan to take our mother on a vacation abroad for her 70th birthday next February has been deep-sixed. I had proposed the idea originally not only because it’s a landmark birthday for her and the 3 of us had never spent time together as adults, but the real motivation for me was my suspicion that mother is a bit depressed. She has taken care of others all of her life, and now she wants some for herself. But she wants it in the way a child needs it: basic, unconditional, tender, loving, caring – physically and emotionally; and the most obvious provider for this is her mate, my dad, who has said in so many words that he refuses to care for her on these terms. Instead, he searches out remedies and medicine for her every ill, tries to get her to take them, until she refuses them too. She is a realist, practical and earthy; my dad tends to the opposite.

I had hoped to give her a chance for a respite from her usual routines, perspectives and stressors, and perhaps the space and new horizons of a different landscape will allow her to find an opening and let some of it out, perhaps together we can heal some of the wounds. Of course, these sprang from my own observations and at least in part are my own projections, that some of what I think she needs is what I need myself, that I feel a lack of some basic TLC in my own life. Perhaps the 3 of us, mother and daughters, can find it in ourselves to do for each other’s needs and our own. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? And very original too, in our family... If we can do this, perhaps then we’ll have more of ourselves to pool our resources, and bring the men in too, to this new-found circle of love, instead of keeping them out and denying our need of them. This is my big new wish for the new moon.

My sister and I also talked about an alternative of taking mother on a weekend trip to Montreal after the cold weather is over. It’ll be easier and less of a change and risktaking for folk used to old, familiar ways, and we’ll still have a chance to rub more than our elbows with each other’s, and see what falls out.

As far as the 7th house influence on partner relationships, Michael and I had a nice little discussion about my needs the other day, after I had that dream about begging for food from the complaining woman in charge at McDonalds. As I worked on the dream I was guided to see that it was about needs: my beliefs about it, my aversion to neediness, and of course, my own needs, my repression and denial of them. At one point of the work I got stuck and nothing would come to me. My body said then to ask Michael, so I did. This prompted our talk, and I think we both did a bit of soul-searching at the same time. But it isn’t until this moment that I realize the question we ought to ask ourselves and each other is, what do I feel I need from you that I am not asking for?

We’ve had a relatively stress-free year so far, but when the waves get big, what is the most important thing that I will need from my lifeboat mate? Perhaps this is a good time to investigate that...

The new moon is yet to come, but these issues have already been spot-lit for me...

The other celestial configuration exerting forces in our lives, arriving September 9, is Jupiter in Pisces. Another biggie for me, touching on the 1st and 10th house. Jupiter and Uranus are also conjunct.

The First House represents the self, self-image, our being, potential, and path to our life's purpose. Jupiter's transit here bring opportunities, happiness, a little luck and favor. You're more confident, a bit bolder and willing to take more risks. So, if you're already naturally a risk-taker, perhaps you might want to keep that in mind and step back to look before you leap sometimes. Become aware of what the universe is offering. Watch your diet, however, don't let the expansion be of your physical body. Jupiter has been in your 12th house for a year where his influence was subtler. Whatever indelible marks or dreams inspired by Jupiter in the 12th, you have the chance to practice or make happen. (wow, I didn’t know it’s been a year, but it’s very true that my dreams have become the pillar for my spiritual guidance and manifestation of much of my healing and growth this past year)

The Tenth House represents professional pursuits, long-term goals, and public reputation. Ideal period to focus on career and aspirations. Advancing within your current company. Getting promoted. Finding something more suitable to your liking. You will generally have favor and good reputation during a Jupiter transit here.

Hmmm... full of portent...

Spotlight on the Feminine

Friday, September 3, 2010

DREAM: that I am in a McDonalds with several young guys who felt like my brothers. The one woman manning the shop was taking her sweet time and doing our orders one at a time, while yapping her face off about how much she hates her job, how awful her life is, etc. She has a captive audience and was making the most of it. Finally she has served just about everyone except me and she sat down at one of the tables, still talking. I began to plead with her to make my order.

DREAMWORK:

My mind immediately goes to my shadow being the woman, and masculine alliance being the men... but...

From my body: It is about the voice of grievance, the plaintive, whining, bitching, passive-aggressive voice inside of me, inside my shadow, because we were told from childhood not to complain, that making demands for yourself is selfish and shameful. That aggrieved part of myself has been suppressed. I didn’t get enough of the love and nurture that I needed, but I wasn’t allowed to complained about it.

My feminine self was especially starved, now begging the shadow for help, but shadow has to be brought to light first... Now that I have done some fairly intensive work to heal my masculine (most of the men have been fed), it is time to turn to the feminine for any redress that is still needed... okay, this part doesn’t feel like it’s from my body...

It has to do with my issues with what I call heart-types, what I judge to be feminine passive-aggression – the bitching, complaining, blaming, guilt-tripping, backstabbing, emotionally manipulative tactics to get your way. I still can’t stand to be around any of that, so definitely that got stuffed down the shute into the shadow as ‘Not Acceptable’. We were not supposed to make our needs known; we should be self-sufficient and be able to fend for ourselves; it is shameful and weak and dishonourable to be needy. Only the weak and ‘girly’ live off others by playing the damsel-in-distress card. So where is that needy damsel in me?

Or perhaps the question to ask is, how can I allow myself to have needs?

First I admit to myself that I have needs, and will always have them in this life, because we are made to be interdependent. It is the glue that holds our world together and keeps it revolving cycle after cycle. Needs and neediness are not the bad thing I’ve believed them to be, despised in others and denied in myself. I shall declare my needs to myself and to the relevant others with honesty, clarity and timeliness, from the still and centred place within.

As an afterthought, I suppose it isn’t quite right to teach children to be independent, at least in a general sweeping sense of not being dependent on someone else for our survival, for that is really an illusion, not to mention fear-based. It only sets children up for self-censure and isolation, deprive them of the support that we need by right and can provide for each other. What we intend as independence is really individuation, for given the conditions of balanced parenting children can grow and separate from their parents in a healthy way, inherit and learn the necessary tools and skills to embark on their own journey.

One more detail needs elucidation: Why was it in McDonalds? Because I do not deserve anything better than cheap fastfood. It is about poverty-consciousness vs. abundance-consciousness. I have cut out much in my life and my ‘needs’ have been greatly reduced in the last couple of years. I feel content and happy about this simplicity of my life now, but perhaps my intentions were not entirely pure, perhaps in some part I played into my belief of myself being small/insignificant/unworthy/undeserving. That instead of dealing with this crippling belief, I hid it, though not consciously, inside the movement to reduce/reuse/simplify. The kernel of fear of poverty and deprivation is still in there... Deep inside I fear deprivation, therefore I deprive myself of needs in order to lessen that fear, believing that if I need less there will be less chance of deprivation. I can see now the black-and-whiteness of this belief, a sure sign that it is a belief.

It suddenly occurs to me that maybe this is why I’ve had a phobia of seeing sharply contrasted black and white colours in nature, such as the glossy skin of the killer whale and the underbelly of a swallow or tadpole (but not pandas or zebras because they are furry and the line between black and white is blurred), or the time black mold grew inside a jar of white tempra paint, the sight of which made me instantly phobic and nauseous.

Back to the issue at hand... needs, and the fear and loathing I have about them, and about myself... What I truly desire is to feel fully human, full-sized for what I am, that I am seen, heard, and always have as much as I need from life. That the source of this providence never runs out, is freely given, and easily accessed anytime. There is no need to waste, but neither is there a need to scrimp and scrape, to be fearful of wanting, of having to save for a rainy day. If we keep the temple (ourselves, our community, our world) clean and sacred and full of prayers and offerings, the flow of life can run through it abundantly and everlastingly. That’s the only work we need to do in this life, the rest is windowdressing. I get now that this is what devotional or contemplative life means.

All of this is immensely valuable insight for me, but I still have to balance the belief in order to move on... help me, my body... Gratitude and worship, intend to bring more and more of them into ALL of my life. Fill myself up with the grace, light, and love this way of life brings until I feel my full-sized self, confident, poised, expressive and sharing, from the stillpoint of my being.
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TWILIGHT: My body told me that it is important to find the constitutional remedy for my dad, and that it is a flowering plant remedy mentioned in Jane Cicchetti’s book. Rose. (I didn’t find it in her book though)

Ordered from Helios: Rosa Gallica 200C / Gallium Muriaticum 30C / Millifolium (Yarrow) 12C

I think Ga-Mur is his constitutional, Ferrum Series, about roles and responsibility, mental/emotional focus; Millifolium is an acute intercurrent, physical focus; and Rosa Gallica is for spiritual growth and expansion, his shadow remedy.

Shadow remedy... hmmm... that feels important somehow... a remedy for the parts of our selves that we have rejected and hidden in the dark recesses of our being, stuff we would deny, repress, and denounce over and over again, not recognizing the alchemical gold it is waiting to become.

But how can we arrive at a prescription of a shadow remedy? The clues would be the things and symptoms that we deny or reject with the most vigour – “That’s definitely not me!”, “I hate it when people do that!”, “I can’t stand it when...”. It is the degree of intensity of denial, the force of repulsion, that give it away.

Using myself as an example, I HATE it when people make noise that encroaches on my peace and quiet. It makes me want to lash out, kill, quash the person responsible for making or allowing the noise. The audacity and inconsideration for others just gall me no end. HOW DARE THEY!!! How dare they belittle others (me) and walk right over my feelings without blinking an eye, as if they can’t see me, as if they don’t know that I have feelings and sensitivities that can be shattered, as if they are totally indifferent to me, as if I don’t matter at all.

Sounds like Type 5 stuff, The Small Man or Hitler Syndrome... Perhaps shadow is in the type that one goes ‘up’ to, e.g. Type 7 goes up to Type 5, supposedly a healthier compensation than going ‘down’ to Type 1. But at least in my case the criticizing and negativity of Type 1 are obvious symptoms of a stressed out 7, to myself and others around me (unfortunately). The ego-inflation and misanthropy of the 5 are much less apparent, I am less likely to voice the hatred, except to show anger if I am with people I know. Very few people know about my urge to kill, and even they don’t take it seriously. I used to be filled with hatred of this kind, and this particular trigger still remains. I watched ultraviolent movies where the bad guys are eviscerated and punished in the most extreme way, and the good guy (a.k.a. the victim) like Arnold Schwartzeneggar got his revenge even though he was not particularly smart. He was justified in doing what he did because he was righteous and the luck of the universe was on his side. Pure shadow projection. Thank you, Arnold!

So, I need a shadow remedy that addresses my split of feeling small/invisible/powerless and its opposite of feeling big/arrogant/powerful. Hmmmm, still masculine stuff... perhaps that’s why in the dream, Shadow sat down at the table across from the one guy sitting alone there...

Nitricum: Stage 15: loss; expansion of the ego, assertive; Silica Series: boundaries
Nitric Acid: In Nitric acid (as with all the acids) we have the theme of separation and the need to re-create a fusion of the separate ends – to complete the circle. This is a potential fulfillment which is somehow being thwarted. This is all about expansion. The person is living a life which does not allow them to expand and be fulfilled. A keynote symptom is sensitive to noise. An unforgiving nature – irritable, hateful and vindictive, they constantly think about past grievances

But my body says not to take a dose of Nit-Ac, there is a better way for me to heal this split. And that is to intentionally bring love into my body next time I am triggered by noise, and ask love to heal the trauma. Where there is hatred let me bring your love... Hmmm... so it was a trauma...
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Saturday, September 3, 2010

DREAMS:

Someone had made a weapon out of a club or paddle, and put some long, vicious looking metal coiled blade on the fat end to hit another person over the crown, to cave their head in. I’m not sure now if the intended victim was me, but I was desperately trying to get away or trying to help that person get away. I woke up in a fright and the backs of my thighs were aching in a big way, the same way they would in waking life when I see something too viscerally painful to watch, but about 25 times more intense.

I was in a place with my siblings and my cousins. The light was a bit dim, as if it’s a cloudy day. There were potted plants of various kinds and sizes everywhere in the room. I began to move one of them, a big one, to the window ledge, to make some room on the floor.

I was looking down and saw that I was pregnant. A guy was with me. I thought it was Michael even though it didn’t look like him.

DREAMWORK: